


You're Safe With Me

by Monstacatz



Series: Nightmares [2]
Category: SPN, Supernatural
Genre: Caring Sam, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fix-It of Sorts, Fluff and Angst, Gabriel (Supernatural) Needs a Hug, Gabriel's time in hell, How Do I Tag, I'm Bad At Tagging, M/M, Nightmares, angsty, for me anyways, its pretty fluffy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-12
Updated: 2018-02-12
Packaged: 2019-03-17 11:51:27
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,806
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13658418
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Monstacatz/pseuds/Monstacatz
Summary: Gabriel's been having nightmares about his time spent captured in Hell and Sam, who can relate, tries to help him deal with them.





	You're Safe With Me

**Author's Note:**

> Hi! It's me again and this is definitely a record for me: two fics started, finished and uploaded in two days. They may only be one-shots, but its still pretty different (I'm a major procrastinator). I guess Gabriel's resurrection was just the slap in the face I needed to hop back onto the Sabriel train now that theres a little bit more life in the fandom.
> 
> That said, I wrote this in a couple hours and I don't have a proper beta so let me know if you see any mistakes, grammar or characterisation wise and I'll fix them ASAP.
> 
> Hope you like it! Comments and kudos are definitely always appreciated and constructive criticism is welcome :)

His first night in the bunker, Gabriel woke up screaming. 

It was an awful mix of his vessel’s human voice and his angelic voice, which made the three other inhabitants of the compound cover their ears, but more so Castiel, who could actually understand what his older brother was saying.

The three of them, two hunters and one angel, had immediately rushed into the hallway and convened in front of the archangels door.

After a few minutes of on and off screaming and a constant stream of muttered Enochian Dean sighed and raked a hand through his hair, bleary-eyed.

‘Not to be that guy, but I think if I went near him in this state I’d be obliterated, so its either you' He directed at Castiel. 'Or Sammy who’s gonna have to deal with him.’ With that, he turned and went back the way he had come, headed back to his own room.

Sam only had to take one look at Castiel’s tense face to volunteer himself for the job. 

It was obvious that Gabriel wasn’t exactly relaying pleasant events in Enochian and Castiel looked like he was going to be sick; as if that was something he could even plausibly do on the empty stomach of a being who doesn’t require food.

‘You can head back to bed, Cas, I got this.’ 

‘Are you sure Sam? He is my brother.’ But Sam just nodded. 

They could both pretend that Castiel needed sleep if it meant avoiding listening to his brother whisper horrible things about what had been done to him. At least if Sam went in he wouldn’t be able to put together the Enochian and gather the true horrors of what Gabriel had faced.

“Thank you, Sam.’ A quick touch to his shoulder in gratitude and then the angel disappeared too and Sam was left alone outside the door.

He braced himself with a deep breath, then quietly opened the door and stepped inside, shutting it behind him when he stepped into the golden light the lamp cast around the room.

But as he turned from the doorknob, the only lamp in the room caught his eye, and it was off.

Frowning, he looked at the bed and discovered that the source of light was Gabriel himself; he was throwing off a golden glow as he tossed and turned, tangled in the sheets. 

As Sam made his way across the room he absently thought that the archangel’s grace must be replenishing itself, not quite putting together what that meant until he reached the edge of the bed and suddenly found himself flung to the ground and pinned there by an almost crushing pressure.

He groaned. Could nothing in his life ever go without a hitch?

Gabriel sat upright on the bed, eyes filled with the same golden light he was emitting, leaving no room for pupils or irises, just solid gold brightness. He didn’t look like he even recognized Sam by the scowl on his face. 

Sam tried to speak but found he couldn’t, a block placed on his voice just like Gabriel had done in the Elysian Fields Hotel all those years ago. Instead, he struggled silently up against the angel’s immense power, wincing at the growing push it had down on him.

He really hoped Gabriel snapped out of this soon.

The archangel seemed almost to be in a trance as he slid out of the bed to stand above Sam, staring down at him with an unreadable expression.

Then, he clenched his fist and Sam felt all the air being dragged out of his lungs. He choked out a cough and shook his head, panicking as sparkles of light danced around the edges of his vision.

Focusing on seemingly trying to choke him out, Gabriel seemed to have let his hold on Sam’s voice slip, so with as much strength as he could muster Sam pieced together a sentence broken up by small, struggling gasps for air.

‘Gabriel, it’s me, its Sam Winchester, I’m not here to hurt you, please wake up.’ Although it took about thirty seconds to actually complete what he was saying, the pressure on his chest lifted when he was finally done and he sucked in a deep breath of relief.

Standing above him, the light in Gabriel’s eyes faded away and his posture slumped, confusion marking his features. His searching gaze stopped at Sam and he looked horrified to see him sprawled on the floor. He snapped his fingers and the lamp clicked on.

‘Sammy? Did I hurt you?’ A little slip, a nickname usually reserved only for Dean. Gabriel kicked himself, reminding himself that this Sam was real and could react to his feelings in ways Gabriel didn’t want to think about. 

Sam shook his head and scrambled to his feet, catching himself from groaning in pain as he twisted the wrong way and sent a twinge of pain throughout his sore ribs. 

He may have suppressed any sounds of discomfort but the angel definitely caught the grimace on his face as he straightened in front of him.

‘I did! Crap kiddo, I’m sorry, c’mere let me-’ but Sam caught hold of his hands before Gabriel could reach out to heal him.

‘No way Gabriel, you’re not wasting any grace on me. You didn’t mean to, you were sleepwalking I think. Not your fault.’ He backed up the few steps until his knees hit the bed and sat down heavily, Gabriel following him with a sour expression.

‘Come on, let me help, I’m feeling better already; I just body slammed you into the floor! My grace is fine.’ A lie, but Sam didn’t know that, or at least Gabriel hoped he didn’t.

‘I’ll let Cas fix me up in the morning, ok?’ A nod from the archangel, but not a pleased one.

‘So what brings you to my room at-’ He checked the clock on the nightstand. ‘Four o’ clock in the morning?’ He frowned. That was pretty late. Was there a problem that they wanted his help with? 'Cause his grace _was_ regenerating, but not _that_ fast.

‘You were screaming, in your sleep. I came by to see if I could help and uhh…’ He gestured to the floor.

‘Aaaand I gratefully fucked you onto the floor...fantastic. Sorry again, Sammich.’ He grinned ruefully.

‘Nah don’t worry about it, really, I’ve had a lot worse and...Sammich?’ Gabriel laughed at him.

‘Yeah, why not? A three letter name is a little on the short side for someone your size, figured I’d try spice it up a little for ya.’ It was coming easier to him now, his old attitude. 

It had been so long since he’d worn his Trickster mask, but it was the version of him that the Winchesters knew best, so he had a feeling he’d be needing to perfect it again pretty soon if he was to stick around here. Nobody wanted a broken archangel moping about.

‘I’ve got more! Samoose, Samshine, Sam-a-lam, Samsquatch, that one’s my favorite, by the way.’ He meant to continue on but Sam was shaking his head.

‘You can drop the act, Gabriel.’ He froze with another nickname on the tip of his tongue, carefully eyeing the hunter to see what he came out with next. Surely it wasn’t that easy to see through him. ‘I know you’re not okay, and you don’t have to be. You’ve been through a hell of a lot.’

The angel deflated like a balloon. Maybe he was a bit of an open book currently. He suddenly looked so lost that Sam couldn’t stop himself from moving closer and pulling the smaller man in against his side.

Gabriel blinked in surprise at the gesture but allowed it. It had been so long since he’d had much physical contact with anything living, let alone another warm body. He sighed and relaxed into Sam’s semi-awkward side embrace, letting his nightmare’s tight hold on him slip off a bit. 

‘I get it, you know? Definitely not to the same extent as you, since my stay in hell was considerably shorter, but the nightmares are awful. That’s why I came in. But I can leave if you want, seeing as you’re awake now.’

Gabriel hurriedly shook his head. ‘No, no you can stay.’ He swallowed his pride, and boy it really was a bitter taste. ‘Please stay. I don’t really want to be alone.’ He knew he sounded weak, but somehow he doubted that Sam would care all that much.

‘Sure, I’ll stay as long as you need, ok?’ Gabriel’s eyes traced his face for any mockery but couldn’t find anything but concern.

‘Ok.’ 

Gabriel shifted away from Sam and off the bed, motioning for him to stand too. When he wobbled a little and Sam grabbed his forearm to brace him Gabriel halfheartedly grumbled at him and shooed his help away. 

He got to work fixing the twisted sheets and when he was done, he crawled back under them. Sam had busied himself with pulling up a chair to sit next to the bed, but stopped, startled when Gabriel jabbed him with a finger. 

He turned, puzzled, and saw the angel patting the bed next to him and rolling his eyes.

‘You didn’t think I was gonna make you freeze your ass off and get a crick in your neck over there did you? Be pretty rude of me considering you’re the one doing me a favor.’

Sam laughed a little and climbed in next to him, pushing all thoughts of how...relationship-y this could seem out of his mind. He had gotten over Gabriel a long time ago. He hoped. 

Still, in the interest of being a good person (at least that was how he justified it in his head), Sam held out his arm again. Gabriel got the message and quickly shuffled closer, into Sam’s side again. 

The archangel tried not to freak out about how much more intimate their awkward side-hug had become once they were lying down. Instead, he focused on keeping his memories under control, trying to lock them away in a box. It wasn’t working.

After a few minutes of silence broken only by their breathing, Sam spoke.

‘Gabriel?’ He hummed Sam an acknowledgment. ‘What did they do to you?’

The question hung in the air, and Sam felt bad for asking it; of course, he did but he knew that there was no getting over things like this unless you talked about them. He knew all too well from not having the opportunity to talk after his bout in hell himself.

‘Sam...I can’t. I can’t talk about that. Ask me anything else and I’ll answer you, but not that.’ Gabriel's voice was desperate, pleading with Sam to just leave it alone.

‘Can you show me?’ A heavy sigh from the archangel.

“Sure, kiddo. I’ll show you mine if you show me yours.’ He gave a faded smirk, one that both hunter and angel knew was faker than the tits on a pornstar. Sam nodded his consent to the tradeoff, sealing the deal.

‘Okay, just... don’t rummage around too much inside my head, yeah?’ Sam was a little worried, okay, a lot worried that Gabriel would stumble upon his feelings for him when he was inside his mind and tell him to screw off, for good. 

But Gabriel just nodded his agreement.

‘This is your last chance to back out, Sam. What they did to me isn’t exactly pretty.’ 

‘I know, but I can’t help you if I don’t even know what happened.’

‘Well, then I’m sorry for what you’re about to see, kiddo.’ Gabriel touched two fingers to his forehead and flung his mind into chaos.

_Endless dark corridors, dank cells, splattered with the graffiti of a thousand prisoners, claw marks, bloody splashes, names carved into the stone in the hopes of remembrance of sinners long since forgotten. Lines marking the days spent there overlapping, time warping them into nothing more than a dead man’s fragile hope of escape to his old life._

__

__

_Flashes of red, the screams of the other forsaken souls dragged to the torture chambers, Gabriel’s grace picking up on the echoes of their pain and adding their burdens to his own._

_The wretched sound of bone splintering, the squelch of flesh hit until it turns into bloody pulp, the screeching sound of an angel’s true voice, desperate for help; cries of pain falling onto deaf ears, or rather the ears of a demon who laughs and takes pleasure in them, which is infinitely worse._

_The illusions created in front of Gabriel’s eyes as Asmodeus figures out his weaknesses and starts using his own grace against him to conjure up perfect imitations of them. Sam, he sees Sam the most, the one human he tried to help, the one he had thought deserved better than what fate had handed to him. But in Asmodeus’ constructs Sam is no better than a demon, ripping into him with just as much glee as one of the fiends and laughing and spitting in Gabriel’s face as he begs him to stop, to let him go, tells him he’s sorry for what he’s done even as the fake Sam drags an angel blade across his chest and cuts off his babbling with a shriek of agony. Fake Sam tells him that he doesn’t deserve to be saved._

_Then Sam changes to his Father, who tells him he is worthless and deserves to be in hell and that is why he will not rescue him. Next is Castiel, his baby brother whom he looked after as a fledgling, spitting on him and telling him that is it his fault that he can never be a normal angel, that his human weaknesses had stemmed from Gabriel’s own affinity for the talking apes. Michael, calling him a coward for running away from Heaven. Lucifer, announcing that Gabriel is just a washed up imitation of him. It cycles around and around through all the people Gabriel cares about, all of them throwing his insecurities in his face as they slash at him with his sword._

_He screams and screams until Asmodeus sews up his mouth, and then all he can do is sob silently._

Sam jolted out of Gabriel’s memories with a choked off cry of sympathy and pushed himself up into a sitting position against the headboard. 

‘Oh my god, Gabriel, no...no, none of that is real, none of its true!’ Gabriel shrugged, refusing to meet his eyes. 

The horrified tone of Sam’s voice was enough to bring back his own terror, and instead of glancing around inside Sam’s head to find out about his past with hell Gabriel found himself flooded with all of the memories he’d just shown Sam.

He gasped and curled in on himself, hugging his knees and focusing on keeping back tears. He’d already shown enough weakness around the hunter in the last hour.

Sam’s breath hitched too, distraught at the state of the archangel beside him, who still felt so very far away. He wanted to cry for him, for all the torture inflicted on him, and maybe he would, but not right now when Gabriel was so overwhelmed with it himself.

‘Gabe, do you trust me?’ He whispered, leaning forward so that he would hear him over his ragged breathing. He gave a slight nod. ‘Okay good, then come here for a sec.’

Straightening, Gabriel sat back against the headboard again only for Sam to shake his head. He slid his arm around Gabriel’s back and used it to pull the archangel around and sideways into his lap, ending up with him sitting sideways with his head resting on Sam’s chest and Sam’s arms around him in a proper embrace. 

‘Sam, what on Dad’s green earth are you doing?’ He tried to keep his tone light but his voice was thick with unshed tears.

‘You said you trusted me, right?’

‘Yeah…’

‘So let it all go, drop all of your acts. You’re safe with me, I promise.’ Sam leaned down and kissed his forehead, running his hand up and down the angels back at the same time.

Gabriel froze for a second, going over his options. And then he broke. 

He sobbed quietly into Sam’s shirt and let himself be held, let himself be taken care of for the first time he could remember since Heaven.

And Sam Winchester sat with him, Gabriel, the Messenger of God and muttered reassurances into his hair between softly placed kisses. He knew it would take a long time, but for the first time in years, maybe even since he ran away from Heaven, Gabriel thought that maybe things might turn out okay.

And needless to say, after that first night, Gabriel didn’t sleep alone anymore.


End file.
